What's Your Vice?
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 7:00AM MAD21 By Heather (Balance with Purpose)
The youth at my church planned and participated in the H2O project the past two weeks. Everyone in the congregation and others that were reached in the community were challenged by our youth to give up all beverages except water for two weeks. Whatever money they would have spent on sodas, coffee, milk, etc. was to be donated to the H2O project to help people in a country without clean water to drink.
My friend (we’ll call her Mary) told me during dinner at church Wednesday night that she would be writing a hefty check on behalf of her and her son for the H2O project. They did their best to drink water for the two weeks, cheating only twice, and kept track of how many times they passed on buying a Starbucks drink or soda.
“That’s great, Mary,” I said. “How much?”
“I can’t tell you. I’m too embarrassed.”
I turned and eyed her with a smirk. “How much?” I asked again.
“Seventy dollars.”
“Seventy dollars?” I said in disbelief. “How can you spend $70 in two weeks on beverages?”
“Starbucks.”
“Ahh.” I nodded and looked down at the enchilada on my plate.
I started to try to make her feel better, but she was quick to stop me and point out that she now realized how much money she was wasting at the familiar coffeehouse, and hoped to curtail the bad habit immediately. Before this project she had no idea just how much she had been spending on the gourmet coffee and tea concoctions.
“That’s like $1600 a year,” my husband said after overhearing our conversation.
“Thanks, Mike,” Mary said. “It didn’t even occur to me to multiply that out to see just how much money I was wasting in an entire year.”
“Sorry,” Mike said. He turned to talk to someone else.
I’m sorry that I seemed to judge Mary initially because I realized that although I don’t have a weakness for Starbucks, I have other weaknesses that I “waste” money on–money that could be better spent or saved to help other causes, whether it be in the form of charitable contributions, personal retirement or to buy food and clothes for my children.
The money raised by the H2O project at my church is being sent to a mission team at another church scheduled to travel to Haiti soon to dig a well, so we were excited to not only help people in need of clean water, but thankful we found a direct way to help the people of Haiti. And Mary was happy that she helped in a big way.
Question for you: What is your vice? Is there something in your life that you spend too much money on? Do you eat lunch out too often instead of packing a lunch from home? Or maybe you have a love of shoes or clothes you don’t need? I think we all have something in our lives that we can cut in order to save a little cash, or better – donate it.
Heather Sunseri is a Christian, wife and mother of two young children. She has worked as a CPA for the past 15 years for thoroughbred horse farms and in public accounting in Central Kentucky. She spends her free time as an inspirational writer and enjoys the little things in life from long bike rides in the country to homemade pizza and family game night.
Reader Comments (3)
Soda pop. I used to like Starbucks, but since I've been a stay at home daughter, I have been careful about that. But lately I have really been drinking too much pop.
We've cut way back (out of necessity), but we also found out that we were spending a TON of money on Starbucks (or similar) treats. Now, unless we have a giftcard, we make our own treats at home!
Thanks for this, Ginny and Heather.
Great reminder Heather ... always looking at my world and trying to find ways to simply. I cut back on the money I spend on clothes recently - I can wear what I have more often, rather than going out and buying more.